Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

2)Mathews has never seen us do magic. All Mathews might know is how we feel to his wards, and that we came to his place with an item that had a spirit or devil in it. He doesnt know how it got there, and frankly given that we came with Dresden, the guy who raised a T-rex with necromancy, bound the Erlking and killed the Summer Lady, its entirely plausible Dresden did it.
Molly just spent 2 essence that is the same as dropping a tactical nuke magically speaking.
 
There is a child in the blast radius. I repeat, there is a child in the blast radius.

4)Our car, and the video tape that gets Dresden out of jail, is also in the blast radius.
We don't even have a blast radius, no aoe-Charms bought yet.

And Matthews house was strongly warded.

The tape is the only victim with any real likelyhood.
 
[X]Yzarc

I think you have points uju just if this has an encounter later today I see us having lost some essence by then and being less prepared. If there was a plan for using the crown to find the kidnapped child right now and heading for them I'd vote for that instead honestly too late though.
 
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This really is the best possible situation for a fight to go down. She did not come prepared for combat, she came to bully a mortal. No combat buffs, not in her combat armor, not having any backup, and not having surprise. We will literally never get a better chance.
 
Molly just spent 2 essence that is the same as dropping a tactical nuke magically speaking.
That is NOT true.
Or else Dresden would literally be clawing his eyes out every time we used Essence in his presence.

We don't even have a blast radius, no aoe-Charms bought yet.
And Matthews house was strongly warded.
The tape is the only victim with any real likelyhood.
1)We may not. She almost certainly does.
2)We are inside Mathews wards.
 
Are Valkyrie known for AoE spells?

Also, if she's somehow gone rogue from her obedience to Odin, I suspect she's Nemesis infected/possessed.

Asking why she's gone rogue might be very insightful, as part of Nemesis would be inside her.
 
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This really is the best possible situation for a fight to go down. She did not come prepared for combat, she came to bully a mortal. No combat buffs, not in her combat armor, not having any backup, and not having surprise. We will literally never get a better chance.
She walked inside the heavy duty wards of a known sorcerer in order to threaten him after kidnapping his grandkid.
If you think she didnt come here with the possibility of shit going bad in the back of her head?
You must really think she's incompetent.

Molly walks around with armor under her clothes.
Why do you think an Old Norse Valkyrie and rune sorceress will wear all her protections visibly?
Are Valkyrie known for AoE spells?
Gard at least inscribed one spell inside the Chicago train station that crippled a twenty foot tall Gruff in full armor.
Gimme a couple minutes to find the passages.
 
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She walked inside the heavy duty wards of a known sorcerer in order to threaten him after kidnapping his grandkid.
If you think she didnt come here with the possibility of shit going bad in the back of her head?
You must really think she's incompetent.

Molly walks around with armor under her clothes.
Why do you think an Old Norse Valkyrie and rune sorceress will wear all her protections visibly?
A mortal is a mortal minor talent or no. If she could not threaten him just by existing, Molly would not even need to roll in the fight. And no she not wearing her actual armor, not holding her weapons, has no combat buff spells etc. She basically given Molly an open invitation to slice her head off.
 
Gard at least inscribed one spell inside the Chicago train station that crippled a twenty foot tall Gruff in full armor.
Gimme a couple minutes to find the passages.
And this defeats your whole "there is a child inside the house, we can't fight here" logic. If there is a child inside the house, she is still in danger. No, you don't let her come in contact with this being. At all. We attack now, where we have the maximum element of surprise, and a possible ally.

She walked inside the heavy duty wards of a known sorcerer in order to threaten him after kidnapping his grandkid.
If you think she didnt come here with the possibility of shit going bad in the back of her head?
You must really think she's incompetent.

Molly walks around with armor under her clothes.
Why do you think an Old Norse Valkyrie and rune sorceress will wear all her protections visibly?
Yes. And that's why we have to attack here. At all times later, she'll have more intel and prep against us. We lose in intel and prep. We lose hard at this point. So, we have to fight now.

People don't get "summon panoply" for free. We do. This is the time to strike.
 
Are Valkyrie known for AoE spells?
Small Favor:
Gard narrowed her eyes as I spoke, and when I finished she gave me a single nod. She reached into her pocket, moving very gingerly, and withdrew a single silver key. She held it out to me. "Union Station, locker two fourteen. Everything is labeled."

I reached out to take the key, but Gard's fingers tightened on it for a second. "Don't let anything you care about stand directly in front of it when you open it."
I felt a sudden, swift vibration that rose through the soles of my shoes, and then a heavy thud accompanying a second such tremor. I whirled to face the front of the building as glass and brick and stone exploded from the entry door. Behind it was a vague flicker of haze in the air, but as whatever was behind the veil entered the glare of Amoracchius and my impromptu thundershower, the spell faltered and vanished.

Twenty feet and four or five tons of Big Brother Gruff erupted from the veil.

He wore armor made of some kind of translucent crystal, and the sword in his hand was longer than my freaking car.
His mouth opened, and I felt his battle roar rather than hearing it over the cacophony of combat, a sound so deep and loud that it should have been made by a freaking whale.
I waited until the last second to jump back, ripping open the door to Gard's locker as I went.

I could only describe what happened next as a bolt of lightning. It wasn't lightning-not really. Real lightning did not have the raw, savage intensity of this...thing, and I realized with a startled flash of insight that this energy, whatever it was, was alive. White-hot power tinged with flashes of scarlet streaked out of the locker like a hundred hyperkinetic serpents, zigzagging with impossible speed. That living lightning ripped into Tiny, cutting through his crystalline armor as if it had been made of soft wax. It burned and slashed and pounded the flesh beneath in a long line from Tiny's shoulder to his lower leg, letting out a screaming buzz of sound unlike anything I had ever heard before.

In the last fraction of a second before it vanished, the energy snapped back and forth like the tip of a whip, and Tiny's left leg came off at the knee.


The gruff screamed. Whatever that thing had been, it had taken the fight out of Tiny.

Hell's bells.

I stared at the maimed Summer champion and then at the open, innocent-looking locker. Then I walked slowly forward.

Tiny had only one eye open, and it didn't look like it would focus on anything. His breathing was rough, quick, and ragged, which translated into a seething, oat-scented breeze anywhere within ten or fifteen feet of his head.

Tiny blinked his other eye open, and though they still wouldn't focus he let out a weak-sounding grunt. "Mortal," he rasped, "I am bested." One of his ears flicked once and he exhaled in a sigh. "Finish it."

I walked past the fallen gruff without stopping, noting as I did that the stroke of energy that had severed his leg had cauterized it shut, too. He wasn't going to bleed to death.

I peered cautiously into the locker.

It was empty except for a single, flat wooden box about the size of a big backgammon kit. The back wall of the locker sported something else-the blackened outline of some sort of rune. It wasn't the first time I'd seen Gard employing some kind of rune-based magic, but I'd be damned if I knew how it was done. I reached out with my wizard's senses cautiously, but felt nothing. Whatever energy had been stored there was gone now.
Thats what we've seen Gard do in canon.
And Gard doesnt dabble in necromantic magic like this woman is supposed to.
 
As a note, leaving here will mean she asks him about us, but does he actually have any actionable intel about us beyond that we hang out with Dresden? That she can't already sense herself? He knows so little about us he thought we had no chance of fighting her, which is either true and we shouldn't fight her now, or wrong and he doesn't know anything about our power that she can use.

As far as he knows, we're someone capable of binding least spirits into something we keep in our purse and have the tricky way with words of a practiced spirit-binder that knows her way around loopholes. That gives the impression of someone who fights basically the opposite to the way we do. Let her prep for someone who summons and binds demons to do their fighting for them, it won't hurt us any.
 
The problem here is pretty similar to what it was before.

Losing means we're screwed and have no recourse at all to mitigate the fallout. Winning causes serious problems of its own.

Further, the actual plans proposed for doing this fail to leverage our abilities fully or take steps to decrease our risk and increase our odds of success. They just initiate a cool sword fight.

I don't know how I'm supposed to read that other than the principle desire being to have flashy fight without regard to context or consequence.
 
The kid is not anywhere near by. Not sure why people are assuming that.
He lives at home with his two grandchildren. I quote:
Not all who wear a Wardens' cloak cut by the Wardens' Laws," the old man replies with a knowing look. Seeing Harry's face darken he raises a hand for peace. "Even if you do, there's only so much law to in there: keep the peace, keep the secret, punish the lawbreaker. Where in there does it say you have to give a damn about me or Cindy or Alice?"
Kattrina and her minions/goons kidnapped Cindy.
Alice is still here.
 
A mortal is a mortal minor talent or no. If she could not threaten him just by existing, Molly would not even need to roll in the fight. And no she not wearing her actual armor, not holding her weapons, has no combat buff spells etc. She basically given Molly an open invitation to slice her head off.
1)If she could threaten him just by existing, she would not have needed to kidnap his grandchild.
Here, on his own prepared ground, behind his own wards, he's a tough nut.
Hence the resort to hostage taking.

2)Dresden walks around with the equivalent of high quality armor just with a lesther trenchcoat
Molly wears her Ebon Scales armor shirt as a chemise thats invisible to everyone else.

Do you honestly believe that a thousand year old plus Valkyrie sorceress wearing an ambiguously enchanted jacket is unarmed and unarmored? Really? Do you seriously think she's wearing that studded jacket in the middle of summer to keep warm?
C'mon.
 
1)If she could threaten him just by existing, she would not have needed to kidnap his grandchild.
Here, on his own prepared ground, behind his own wards, he's a tough nut.
Hence the resort to hostage taking.
No, she can threaten him by existing. She can't get him to cooperate by threatening him. Not long term. Kidnapping his grandchild and holding her hostage ensures his cooperation.
 
Votes as they stand.
Adhoc vote count started by Yzarc on Aug 31, 2022 at 12:48 PM, finished with 127 posts and 19 votes.

  • [X] Leave as instructed, if she plans to confront you on some lonely stretch of road you will know precisely where she is and have control of her car
    [X] Try to persuade Matthews to turn the tables in Katrina, you can find Cindy afterwards with the Crown (Charisma+Empath Excelency still in effect)
    -[X] STUNT: You steel yourself, your determination to end the threat, for she was a threat, awakening something within you. You do not fight it even as you take in her position and yours. You assess her appearance and danger even as you feel the Nuclear fire filling your veins, changing you. You smile at her, with a smile that promises violence. It was time to put her down. So you make your plea and give your minion its orders.
    -[X] Regardless what Matthews decides to do, have the car distract her by ramming her throughout the fight distracting her while you transform.
    -[X] Transform into the Shintai Form and go hard on her.
    -[X] Use a Melee Excellency and By Rage Recast but otherwise conserve Essence. See if you can limit the power use to that.
    -[X] Assess the situation and use Green Sun Nimbus Flare as a finishing move or if a good opportunity presents itself in the form of Matthews or the car or any other ally.
    [X] Leave as instructed, if she plans to confront you on some lonely stretch of road you will know precisely where she is and have control of her car
    -[X]After leaving, have Clippy find the kid's Myspace page, then Crown of Eyes to find her, and Google Maps/Google Earth on the location, with particular attention to places that might have security camera coverage
    -[X]Call Michael with the child's name and location; this is in his bailiwick, and getting his input seems relevant
    -[X]Call Gard's number which you have, and ask her if she has a grey eyed sister named Katrina with a sideline in kidnapping children.
    [X] Leave as instructed, if she plans to confront you on some lonely stretch of road you will know precisely where she is and have control of her car
    -[x] A little girl's life hangs in the balance, so as much as you want to beat the bitch into roadkill, you walk away. You have a tracker on her car, you WILL find where she's going, and hopefully find Cindy.
 
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And this defeats your whole "there is a child inside the house, we can't fight here" logic. If there is a child inside the house, she is still in danger. No, you don't let her come in contact with this being. At all. We attack now, where we have the maximum element of surprise, and a possible ally.
No she is not.
Kattrina wouldnt need to take a hostage if she was confident of winning a fight inside Old Man Mathews wards without prohibitive losses. She isnt going to start a fight here if she can help it.

The only way the kids risk increases is if we turn this place into a freefire zone.
And critically, her grandfather thinks so too, or his message would be "Get my grandchild out of here while I try to buy time" or " Go for help while I try to stall her".

Yes. And that's why we have to attack here. At all times later, she'll have more intel and prep against us. We lose in intel and prep. We lose hard at this point. So, we have to fight now.
People don't get "summon panoply" for free. We do. This is the time to strike.
1)Thats frankly not a concern.

We havent showed anything she has any way of finding out, and Mathews knows nothing about what we can or cannot do.
Furthermore our capabilities will keep evolving with each month that passes.
We're a baby. We're growing fast.

Meantime, as soon as we drive off, we literally have the opportunity to pick up the phone and call Gard for information and if she's wanted by Odin's people. And clarify that Odin wont be pissed if we get shanked.
Or get our father's backup. Or get Dresden out of jail.

2)Dresden wears armor by wearing a trenchcoat.
Cowl wore an enchanted robe to the Darkhallow. Kattrina is wearing a jacket that looks enchanted.

Do you think a woman who drove a luxury car here is wearing a studded jacket in the middle of summer for warmth?
The woman is almost certainly wearing magic armor right now.
No, she can threaten him by existing. She can't get him to cooperate by threatening him. Not long term. Kidnapping his grandchild and holding her hostage ensures his cooperation.
No she could not. Thats self-evident.

If she was strong enough to have just rolled him, she wouldnt have bothered with hostage taking. She'd have showed up at his house and threatened him and his kids. But at his home, behind his wards, Old Man Mathews is enough of a threat that she didnt think she could threaten him successfully, or win a fight easily, if at all. And she certainly couldnt get his cooperation.

THATS why she kidnapped Cindy first.

This is a constant of Dresdenverse magic
Sorcerers behind defenses on prepared ground are that much more potent than people attacking them. Thats why the White Council's defenses at Ediburgh need something like a god to crack.

Thats why Quintus Cassius was able to body Dresden in open combat but Dresden behind his wards was untouchable.
 
Votes as they stand.
Adhoc vote count started by Yzarc on Aug 31, 2022 at 12:48 PM, finished with 127 posts and 19 votes.

  • [X] Leave as instructed, if she plans to confront you on some lonely stretch of road you will know precisely where she is and have control of her car
    [X] Try to persuade Matthews to turn the tables in Katrina, you can find Cindy afterwards with the Crown (Charisma+Empath Excelency still in effect)
    -[X] STUNT: You steel yourself, your determination to end the threat, for she was a threat, awakening something within you. You do not fight it even as you take in her position and yours. You assess her appearance and danger even as you feel the Nuclear fire filling your veins, changing you. You smile at her, with a smile that promises violence. It was time to put her down. So you make your plea and give your minion its orders.
    -[X] Regardless what Matthews decides to do, have the car distract her by ramming her throughout the fight distracting her while you transform.
    -[X] Transform into the Shintai Form and go hard on her.
    -[X] Use a Melee Excellency and By Rage Recast but otherwise conserve Essence. See if you can limit the power use to that.
    -[X] Assess the situation and use Green Sun Nimbus Flare as a finishing move or if a good opportunity presents itself in the form of Matthews or the car or any other ally.
    [X] Leave as instructed, if she plans to confront you on some lonely stretch of road you will know precisely where she is and have control of her car
    -[X]After leaving, have Clippy find the kid's Myspace page, then Crown of Eyes to find her, and Google Maps/Google Earth on the location, with particular attention to places that might have security camera coverage
    -[X]Call Michael with the child's name and location; this is in his bailiwick, and getting his input seems relevant
    -[X]Call Gard's number which you have, and ask her if she has a grey eyed sister named Katrina with a sideline in kidnapping children.
    [X] Leave as instructed, if she plans to confront you on some lonely stretch of road you will know precisely where she is and have control of her car
    -[x] A little girl's life hangs in the balance, so as much as you want to beat the bitch into roadkill, you walk away. You have a tracker on her car, you WILL find where she's going, and hopefully find Cindy.
You are making an error.
By using Task instead of Block, you are bundling approval votes for two different types of Leave vote as one vote.

Corrected tally, using Block setting
Adhoc vote count started by uju32 on Aug 31, 2022 at 1:05 PM, finished with 128 posts and 19 votes.

  • [X] Leave as instructed, if she plans to confront you on some lonely stretch of road you will know precisely where she is and have control of her car
    [X] Try to persuade Matthews to turn the tables in Katrina, you can find Cindy afterwards with the Crown (Charisma+Empath Excelency still in effect)
    -[X] STUNT: You steel yourself, your determination to end the threat, for she was a threat, awakening something within you. You do not fight it even as you take in her position and yours. You assess her appearance and danger even as you feel the Nuclear fire filling your veins, changing you. You smile at her, with a smile that promises violence. It was time to put her down. So you make your plea and give your minion its orders.
    -[X] Regardless what Matthews decides to do, have the car distract her by ramming her throughout the fight distracting her while you transform.
    -[X] Transform into the Shintai Form and go hard on her.
    -[X] Use a Melee Excellency and By Rage Recast but otherwise conserve Essence. See if you can limit the power use to that.
    -[X] Assess the situation and use Green Sun Nimbus Flare as a finishing move or if a good opportunity presents itself in the form of Matthews or the car or any other ally.
    [X] Leave as instructed, if she plans to confront you on some lonely stretch of road you will know precisely where she is and have control of her car
    -[X]After leaving, have Clippy find the kid's Myspace page, then Crown of Eyes to find her, and Google Maps/Google Earth on the location, with particular attention to places that might have security camera coverage
    -[X]Call Michael with the child's name and location; this is in his bailiwick, and getting his input seems relevant
    -[X]Call Gard's number which you have, and ask her if she has a grey eyed sister named Katrina with a sideline in kidnapping children.
    [X] Leave as instructed, if she plans to confront you on some lonely stretch of road you will know precisely where she is and have control of her car
    -[x] A little girl's life hangs in the balance, so as much as you want to beat the bitch into roadkill, you walk away. You have a tracker on her car, you WILL find where she's going, and hopefully find Cindy.
 
Some things to consider;

1) Harry was framed by a supernatural faction, one willing to deliberately go so far as to involve mortal authorities. That's a big time taboo the faction is breaking, which is not a good sign for their long-term stability or willingness to even pretend to operate within the commonly accepted rules that govern such interactions.

2) It was almost certainly the Thule Society that did the frame job.

3) If Katrina doesn't already know Harry was here recently, she will shortly. And she'll know we were here with him.

4) Harry's regular associates are fairly well known within Chicago's supernatural community.

5) Gorfel knew to expect Michael at the bone collection meet, since he instructed his mooks to target 'the man in the white cloak'.

6) A sniper who is either a member of the Society or in their temporary employee was dispatched to kill Gorfel right outside Harry's apartment. They failed, but in doing so would have gotten a very clear view of us.

7) They already know who we are. If not by name, then definitely by description. Katrina probably knows we're not a muggle simply by recognizing our description, if they don't already have a photo, ignoring the fact that she detected us putting a Cyberdevil in her car.

8) That means they might already know who our family is. And where they live.

9) They have already shown they are willing to ignore taboos in their efforts to sideline Harry, and they've kidnapped one of Matthews' granddaughters.

What's to stop them from doing similar shit to us and our family?

If she is combat-specced and loaded for bear, Katrina has no reason to let us walk away from this encounter, and since she felt us magically fucking with her car, she probably won't be willing to just hop in and trust it not to explode at an inopportune moment.

EDIT: So if she is currently a dangerous combatant, she will probably attack us. In that case, we cede the initiative to her by not immediately attacking. If she isn't currently combat-specced, if we attack immediately the danger is mitigated.
 
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[X] Leave as instructed, if she plans to confront you on some lonely stretch of road you will know precisely where she is and have control of her car
 
No she is not.
Kattrina wouldnt need to take a hostage if she was confident of winning a fight inside Old Man Mathews wards without prohibitive losses. She isnt going to start a fight here if she can help it.

The only way the kids risk increases is if we turn this place into a freefire zone.
And critically, her grandfather thinks so too, or his message would be "Get my grandchild out of here while I try to buy time" or " Go for help while I try to stall her".
Your forgetting how magic works it fully possible to kill him at any time with the granddaughter. Hell people tried to kill the blackstaff by using his great granddaughter to fire a blood curse at him. Them having a blood relative is putting a gun to his head permanently.
 
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